Growing strawberries: the complete guide

Growing strawberries at a glance

Contents

• Growing strawberries at a glance
• June-bearing, everbearing or day-neutral?
• Best strawberry varieties for cold climates
• Site, soil and pH
• When should you plant strawberries?
• Matted row or hill system?
• How to plant strawberries step by step
• Watering and feeding through the season
• What do you do with strawberries after harvest?
• Runners, propagation and replanting every three years
• Pests, diseases and bird protection
• Winter mulch and spring uncovering
• Growing strawberries in raised beds and pots
• Zone table: planting and picking in USDA zones 3–7
• Common mistakes
• Frequently asked questions

June-bearing, everbearing or day-neutral?

Pick the type before the variety. It decides the shape of the bed, how much you pick at a time, and how the bed is managed.

June-bearing

These set flower buds in autumn as days shorten, then flower all at once the following spring, so the crop arrives concentrated over two or three weeks in June or early July. They give the largest berries, the best flavour and the biggest total yield. They also runner heavily, so the bed fills itself in. Plant an early, a mid-season and a late variety and you stretch three weeks of picking into nearly six.

Everbearing and day-neutral

Everbearers crop twice, in early and late summer, and in cold zones the second crop is the reliable one. They are older genetics than day-neutrals, but Ogallala is very tough in zone 3.

Day-neutrals ignore day length and set flower buds whenever the temperature is between roughly 2 °C and 30 °C (35–85 °F). You pick a bowl at a time from midsummer until frost, including in the planting year. Berries are smaller and the total lower than a good June-bearer, but the season is three months instead of three weeks, and they make few runners, which suits pots and narrow beds.

Alpine strawberries

Alpine strawberries are a selected form of the wild woodland strawberry, Fragaria vesca. The berries are thumbnail-sized but intensely perfumed. Most make no runners, so they work as an edging or in part shade, which no other group tolerates. They come true from seed, and white-fruited forms go untouched by birds.

Best strawberry varieties for cold climates

Variety choice decides how much grey mould you get in a wet June, whether the crown survives an open winter and whether fruit sets after a late frost. All of the following are sold by nurseries in North America and the UK.

Buy certified virus-free plants rather than crowns from a neighbour's bed: viruses and nematodes travel with them and show no symptoms at planting. And plant at least two varieties with different seasons, to stretch picking and insure against a bad year.

Site, soil and pH

Strawberries are shallow-rooted. Most of the root system sits in the top 20–30 cm (8–12 in), which leaves the plant at the mercy of the surface soil.

Sun and air

Six hours of direct sun is the minimum and ten is ideal. Sugar is built from light, and a plant in part shade gives pale, sharp, late fruit. Air movement matters almost as much: an open, breezy site dries leaves and fruit quickly after rain, which does more against grey mould than anything else. Avoid frost pockets, since one frost night blackens the centre of an open flower.

Soil and drainage

The ideal is a deep sandy loam rich in organic matter. Heavy clay works if amended with compost and coarse grit and raised, so the crown never sits in water. Standing water opens the door to Phytophthora crown rot, leather rot and red stele. Dig a 30 cm (12 in) hole and fill it with water; if it still holds after four hours, raise the bed.

pH and previous crop

Strawberries want more acid soil than most vegetables. University of Maine Extension puts the optimum at pH 5.8–6.2, and 5.5 to 6.5 works. Above about 7.0 the plants run short of iron and manganese and leaves pale between the veins. Work in ericaceous compost or sulphur if the reading is high, and lime only below 5.5.

Do not plant where strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes or peppers grew in the last three to four years. All share verticillium wilt, and strawberry beds also build up nematodes and root weevils. Treat the bed as part of a rotation, as set out in the guide to crop rotation, and site it alongside permanent crops such as rhubarb.

When should you plant strawberries?

The answer splits by climate, and the split matters.

Spring planting, zones 3–5

In the cold zones you plant dormant crowns as soon as the ground can be worked and is no longer soggy, usually mid-April to mid-May, and potted plants from May into June. The crown then has the whole season to build roots, leaves and runners before setting flower buds in the short days of September. Early spring beats late spring every time.

Late-summer planting, zones 6–7 and the UK

Where autumn is long and mild, late August to mid-September is better. The soil is warm, roots go out in ten days, and the plant still sets flower buds before winter. The RHS recommends exactly this window for British gardens. North of zone 6 it closes too early: a plant set in September has no root system and gets heaved out by frost.

What to buy

• Dormant bare-root crowns. Cheap per plant and the standard for a bed of fifty or a hundred. Keep them cool and moist and plant within days.
• Potted plants. The only form worth using for late-summer planting and the safest option for a small bed.
• Plug plants. Sold in late summer and easy to establish if watered for a fortnight.

Matted row or hill system?

Spacing is about airflow, not root space: a crowded bed never dries out after rain, and wet fruit becomes mouldy fruit. Which system you use follows from the type you planted.

How matted row works

You set the mother plants far apart and let their runners root where they land, so the row thickens into a mat 30–45 cm (12–18 in) wide. It is the lowest-effort system and the standard for June-bearers in North America. The discipline is keeping the mat from spreading: past 45 cm the berries shrink and grey mould triples.

How the hill system works

Plants go in close on a raised bed, two to four rows wide, and every runner is removed as it appears. All the energy goes into the mother crown, which builds multiple crowns and larger fruit. It is the right system for day-neutrals and everbearers.

How many plants do you need?

University of Maine Extension puts 100 plants as enough for a family of four with a surplus to freeze; for fresh picking alone, twenty-five is plenty for two people.

How to plant strawberries step by step

Allow half an hour for a dozen plants once the ground is prepared.

1. Clear every scrap of perennial weed. Couch grass, bindweed and thistle cannot be dug out later without disturbing the crowns.
2. Work in organic matter. Dig 5–8 cm (2–3 in) of well-rotted compost into the top 25 cm (10 in), plus coarse grit in clay. It is your only chance at the soil beneath the plants.
3. Test and correct pH. Aim for 5.8–6.2.
4. Raise the rows 10–15 cm (4–6 in). A low ridge lifts the crown out of wet soil and dries it faster.
5. Soak the roots briefly. Dormant crowns go in water for an hour, no longer. Trim long roots back to about 10 cm (4 in) so they cannot double back in the hole.
6. Lay the plants out before you dig and check the spacing for your system. Moving a plant is harder than moving a pot.
7. Set the crown at the soil line. The one measurement that matters. Soil comes halfway up the crown: every root buried, the growing point clear. Too deep and the crown rots; too shallow and the roots dry out.
8. Fan the roots downward, never in a circle. Make a wedge with a trowel and hang the roots straight down.
9. Water in with 2–3 litres (1/2 gal) per plant, again two days later, then every second day for two weeks.
10. Pinch off every flower the first year on June-bearers, and the first cluster on day-neutrals. It feels wrong and roughly doubles next year's crop.
11. Mulch between the rows, not over the crowns, with 2–3 cm (1 in) of straw or thin grass clippings.
12. Label the rows with variety and planting year. In three years you need to know which row goes first.

Watering and feeding through the season

Shallow roots mean strawberries cannot reach deeper water. The working figure is 25 mm (1 in) a week during growth and fruiting, in one or two soakings rather than daily sips. Light frequent watering keeps the roots at the surface and makes the plant more fragile, not less.

Water at the soil surface, ideally by drip line, and in the morning. Water on leaves and fruit invites grey mould and powdery mildew.

Feeding at planting

All the base fertility goes in now: compost plus a balanced granular feed at roughly 250–500 g per 10 m² (1/2–1 lb per 100 sq ft) of 10-10-10, the Utah State University Extension figure. Fresh manure burns new roots and pushes leaf.

Feeding during a cropping year

Hold back. Excess nitrogen in spring gives lush foliage, soft fruit and far more grey mould, and on decent soil an established June-bearing bed needs no spring feed at all. Day-neutrals are the exception: give them a light monthly feed from July.

Feeding at renovation

The important one. Utah State University Extension gives 2.5–4 kg of 10-10-10 per 30 m (5–8 lb per 100 ft) of row immediately after mowing, watered in; an organic equivalent is compost plus blood meal.

What do you do with strawberries after harvest?

Renovation separates a bed that crops for four years from one that quits after two. It takes an hour per 10 m (30 ft) of row, within two weeks of the last berry.

1. Mow or shear the foliage off 2.5–4 cm (1–1.5 in) above the crowns, high enough to clear them, because damaging the crowns costs you next year. Rake the clippings off and remove them, and do not compost them if you had mildew. Skip this step on day-neutrals, which are still cropping.
2. Narrow the row. Hoe or spade the edges so the mat is back to 15–30 cm (6–12 in) wide. Most gardeners skip this, and it is what keeps berries large.
3. Thin the crowns so the survivors stand 10–20 cm (4–8 in) apart. Crowding is the commonest cause of small fruit in year three.
4. Fertilise and water in, following with 25 mm (1 in) of water.
5. Keep the bed weed-free and moist through August and September. Flower buds form in the short days of September, and drought now shows up directly in next June's crop.

The same logic governs the other soft fruit: the work that decides next year's crop happens once this year's is over, as with raspberries.

Runners, propagation and replanting every three years

A runner is a stolon carrying a daughter plant, and June-bearers throw them out from July. In a hill system, and in pots, remove every one as it appears: each costs the mother plant sugar that would go into fruit. In a matted row, let them root but cut back anything wandering into the path.

Raising new plants from runners

1. Choose the first daughter on each runner, nearest the mother plant. It is the strongest.
2. Press its node into the soil and hold it with a stone or wire pin; roots appear in two to three weeks. Or sink a 9 cm (31/2 in) pot of compost under the runner and root it directly.
3. Sever the stolon when the daughter has three leaves and holds when you tug gently.
4. Plant it out in late summer, or overwinter it in the pot and plant in April in zone 3–5.

Never propagate from plants older than three years, or from a bed with yellowing, crinkled or unusually small leaves. After three home-raised generations, buy fresh certified stock.

Why the bed has to move

A strawberry plant lives for years but only pays for three to five. Year one gives full crops and the largest fruit, year two the highest total, year three smaller berries and more mould, year four onwards plenty of leaf and little fruit.

The crown climbs a couple of centimetres a year, so new roots form higher and further from moisture, while nematodes, crown rot and perennial weeds build up. The answer is not fresh plants in the same ground but a new site, with three to four years before strawberries come back. Practically: keep two or three small beds rather than one big one, and replace one each year with runners from the healthiest.

Pests, diseases and bird protection

Most strawberry problems are moisture problems in disguise. Get air between the plants, dry fruit and a modest nitrogen supply, and you avoid nearly all of them.

Grey mould

The commonest and costliest disease. It infects at flowering but shows only as the berry ripens, as a grey-brown fuzz starting at the calyx, and one infected berry passes it on in two days. No home product controls it, so everything rests on dry fruit: straw under every berry, narrow rows, an open site, modest nitrogen and daily picking.

Strawberry bud weevil

A small dark weevil lays an egg in an unopened flower bud, then girdles the stalk so the bud dangles and dries. One female can clip thirty buds, and the damage shows around bloom with no way to repair it. The weevils overwinter in the bed and in leaf litter, so numbers climb year on year — another argument for siting each new bed away from the old. Fleece until the first flowers open keeps them out.

Slugs and spotted wing drosophila

Slugs leave chewed craters with slime trails. What works: straw rather than grass clippings, a ring of dry grit, short grass around the bed, picking at dusk, and ferric phosphate pellets.

Spotted wing drosophila is now the main late-season pest across much of North America and the UK, and unlike ordinary fruit flies it lays in sound, ripening fruit. Day-neutrals cropping in August and September are most exposed. Pick every day, leave no overripe fruit, and use fine insect mesh rather than bird netting where it is established.

Bird protection that works

Blackbirds and starlings find ripe fruit before you do, and a pecked berry moulds within a day. Only netting works:

• Build a frame. Hoops of wire or conduit, or a timber box, with the netting stretched over it. Netting laid onto the plants gets pressed down and the birds feed through the mesh.
• Stretch it taut and pin the edges down. Slack netting traps small birds and hedgehogs; netting with an open edge is just a door.
• Use 15–20 mm mesh and put it up before the first berry colours.

Foil strips and old CDs work for three days. White-fruited alpine strawberries are the only real alternative.

Winter mulch and spring uncovering

Strawberries are hardy but shallow. They survive hard cold under snow, and are damaged by bare frost, by freeze-thaw cycles that heave the crown out of the ground, and by drying wind. In zones 3–5 winter mulch is not optional.

Timing matters more than material. Wait until the plants are dormant and two or three hard frosts have hardened them off, when daytime temperatures stay below about 4 °C (40 °F) — mid-November in zone 4–5, early November in zone 3. Mulch while the plants are still active and you get crown rot. University of Illinois Extension adds the other end of the window: get it on before temperatures drop below −7 °C (20 °F).

Use 10–15 cm (4–6 in) of clean straw or shredded leaves, loosely laid – Illinois puts the quantity at 45–70 kg per 90 m² (100–150 lb per 1,000 sq ft), two to four small bales. Avoid whole leaves that mat into an airless sheet, and hay, which carries weed seed.

Pull the mulch off as soon as growth starts under it, usually late March or April, and rake it into the paths, where it becomes the straw bed under the fruit. Through bloom in May, keep fleece ready for evenings when the forecast shows a clear sky and temperatures below 2 °C (36 °F).

Growing strawberries in raised beds and pots

Containers are often better than open ground: you control the compost, slugs have further to climb, and you replace the medium instead of moving a bed.

Raised beds

A 1.2 × 2.4 m (4 × 8 ft) raised bed holds about 24 plants at 30 cm (12 in) spacing in a hill layout. Fill with roughly 60 per cent topsoil or loam-based compost, 25 per cent well-rotted compost and 15 per cent coarse grit, and check the pH, because many bagged mixes sit near neutral. Other crops for the system are covered in the guide to the best raised bed crops, and the same bed suits blueberries if you acidify it.

Pots, troughs and baskets

Allow 4–5 litres (1 gal) of compost per plant and at least 20 cm (8 in) of depth. A 10-litre bucket takes two plants, a 60 cm (24 in) trough three. Water daily in warm weather through flowering and fruiting, and feed fortnightly with a high-potassium liquid feed, because container compost is exhausted after six weeks.

Hanging baskets are decorative and genuinely practical: the fruit hangs clear of soil and slugs and never sits wet. Use day-neutrals or trailing varieties, three plants to a 30 cm (12 in) basket, and accept that a basket dries out faster than anything else.

Overwintering containers

This is where containers differ sharply from open ground: a pot freezes solid right through and the roots die, while the same plant in the ground comes through untouched. Move the pot into an unheated garage at 0–5 °C (32–41 °F) and water lightly once a month, sink it to its rim in a garden bed and cover with leaves, or group the pots against a house wall and pack leaves around them. A warm room does not work – the plant needs its chilling period to flower.

Zone table: planting and picking in USDA zones 3–7

The table is for cold-climate gardens: northern US, Canada, Scotland and the Nordic countries. Spring planting dominates in zones 3–5 because the autumn window closes before the plants can root. An exposed or high site behaves like a zone colder.

In zone 3 and much of zone 4 the late-summer window is effectively closed, so spring planting with a pinched first year is the only route — budget for one season without fruit. Very late varieties such as Malwina belong in zone 6–7.

Common mistakes

• Planting the crown too deep. A buried crown rots, and it is the commonest reason new plants never get going. Soil comes halfway up the crown, growing point clear.
• Letting the first year crop. Fruit in the planting year costs far more next June than it gives you now. Pinch every flower off June-bearers.
• Skipping renovation. Next year's crop is built in August and September. Mow, narrow the row, thin, feed and water within two weeks of the last berry.
• Feeding nitrogen in spring. Lush leaves, soft fruit and a great deal more grey mould. Put the fertiliser on at renovation instead.
• Letting the matted row spread. Past about 45 cm (18 in) wide the berries shrink and mould sets in.
• Keeping the bed into years five and six. Yield halves and soil problems accumulate. Start a new bed on fresh ground every three or four years.
• Mulching for winter too early. Straw over plants still growing causes crown rot. Wait for two or three hard frosts.
• Forgetting the straw under the fruit. A berry resting on soil goes mouldy or gets eaten. Lay it when the flowers open.

Frequently asked questions

When is the best time to plant strawberries?
In zones 3–5, as soon as the ground can be worked in spring, usually mid-April to mid-May for dormant crowns. In zones 6–7 and in Britain, late August to mid-September is better, because the plants root in warm soil and still set flower buds for a full crop next summer. Planting after mid-September in a cold zone leaves the crowns to be heaved by frost.

How deep should strawberry plants be planted?
Soil should come halfway up the crown: every root buried, the growing point clear above the surface. Too deep and the crown rots, too shallow and the roots dry out. It is the most common planting error and cannot be corrected afterwards.

How far apart should strawberries be planted?
For June-bearers in a matted row, 45–60 cm (18–24 in) apart in rows 90–120 cm (3–4 ft) apart, letting runners fill the gaps. For day-neutrals in a hill system, 30–38 cm (12–15 in) each way in beds two to four rows wide, with all runners removed. Closer and airflow drops, berries shrink and grey mould multiplies.

Should you pick off strawberry flowers the first year?
Yes, on June-bearers planted in spring. Pinch off every flower through the first season and the plant puts its energy into roots, leaves and runners, roughly doubling the crop in year two. On day-neutrals remove only the first flower cluster, then let them crop.

Why are my strawberries so small?
Usually age and crowding. A bed in its fourth or fifth year makes plenty of leaf and little fruit, and a spread matted row does the same. Other causes are drought during flowering, too little sun and too much spring nitrogen. Thin the crowns to 10–20 cm (4–8 in) at renovation and start a new bed every three or four years.

What is renovation and when do you do it?
It is the annual reset of a June-bearing bed, done within two weeks of the last berry and by 1 August in cold zones. Mow the leaves 2.5–4 cm above the crowns and remove them, narrow the row to 15–30 cm, thin the weakest crowns, then fertilise and water in. It clears mildew and leaf spot and forces fresh foliage that builds next year's buds.

How do you stop grey mould on strawberries?
By keeping the fruit dry, because no home product controls it. Lay 5 cm of clean straw under the plants when the flowers open, keep rows narrow, choose an open breezy site, go easy on nitrogen and water at soil level. Pick daily and take infected berries out of the garden. Florence and Earliglow resist it better.

Can you grow strawberries in pots year after year?
Yes, but the pot needs overwintering properly. Allow 4–5 litres of compost and 20 cm of depth per plant, water daily in warm weather and feed fortnightly with a high-potassium feed. For winter, move the pot into an unheated garage at 0–5 °C and water lightly once a month, or sink it to its rim in a bed. A warm room does not work – the plant needs a chilling period to flower.

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